Black lives matter.
Judging from social media, many people don’t seem to have much patience for analysis or nuance these days. They just want to signal where they stand and cancel anyone who doesn’t signal the same way. Some apparently feel that this moment is about achieving some sort of personal sanctity, and judging others’ lack thereof, rather than ending the concrete, violent abuses of state power that have resulted in the deaths or wrongful imprisonments of George Floyd, the Central Park 5, and so many others, disproportionately but not exclusively people of color. So before I say anything more, I feel I must state plainly, Black lives matter.
I do not accept all of the assumptions that underlie contemporary left-wing identity politics. I will write about those disagreements some other time. Today I want to write about policing.
Judging from social media, many people don’t seem to have much patience for analysis or nuance these days. They just want to signal where they stand and cancel anyone who doesn’t signal the same way. Some apparently feel that this moment is about achieving some sort of personal sanctity, and judging others’ lack thereof, rather than ending the concrete, violent abuses of state power that have resulted in the deaths or wrongful imprisonments of George Floyd, the Central Park 5, and so many others, disproportionately but not exclusively people of color. So before I say anything more, I feel I must state plainly, Black lives matter.
I do not accept all of the assumptions that underlie contemporary left-wing identity politics. I will write about those disagreements some other time. Today I want to write about policing.
“Defund the police” is another slogan that protesters are asserting. Its meaning varies. Some go so far as to advocate the complete abolition of certain law enforcement agencies, or all of them. Others advance the more realistic position that law enforcement should be limited to its proper sphere, and resources should be redirected.
During a press conference in 2016 following an attack that killed five officers, former Dallas Police Chief David Brown eloquently summed up the mission creep that has afflicted policing in the US:
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Addendum (2 July 2020):
For more about systemic racism in the US criminal justice system, I highly recommend the documentary 13th and the docuseries Flint Town. Both were available on Netflix last time I checked.
These two works are complementary. The former gives the big picture of mass incarceration and its connection to systemic racism, placing the phenomenon in its historical, political, and economic context. The latter gives the view from ground, showing the effects of systemic racism and neoliberal policies on a single city and on the law enforcement officers who are trying to work for the betterment of their community while caught up in this system.
I knew of racial disparities in incarceration rates in a general way before I saw 13th, but I did not realize just how much the overall incarceration rate had increased during my lifetime. It has skyrocketed (see graph above). For more facts and figures, see The Sentencing Project.
During a press conference in 2016 following an attack that killed five officers, former Dallas Police Chief David Brown eloquently summed up the mission creep that has afflicted policing in the US:
What we're doing, what we're trying to accomplish here is above challenging. It is -- we're asking cops to do too much in this country. We are. We're just asking us to do too much . . .
Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding. Let the cop handle it. Not enough drug addiction funding. Let's give it to the cops. Here in Dallas, we've got a loose dog problem. Let's have the cops chase loose dogs. You know, schools fail. Give it to the cops. 70% of the African-American community is being raised by single women. Let's give it to the cops to solve that, as well. That's too much to ask . . .
Policing was never meant to solve all of those problems. . . . I just ask for other parts of our democracy, along with the free press, to help us. To help us and not put that burden all on law enforcement to resolve. So, again, I'm just being pretty honest with you. You know, I have raw feelings about all of what we do. And don't ask me if you don't want the answer. (RealClearPolitics.com, 2016)
The sociologist Alex S. Vitale quotes Brown early in his 2017 book The End of Policing. Vitale describes how politicians have tried to use the criminal justice system to address a wide variety of problems:
School discipline
School discipline
Mental illness
Homelessness
Sex work
Drug abuse
Gangs
Immigration
Political dissent
Vitale argues that in each of these areas, the expansion of policing and criminalization has not solved the problems and has resulted in disproportionate negative impacts on the most vulnerable members of society, especially the poor and people of color. Vitale advocates curtailing police involvement in all of these areas and shifting resources to other approaches or decriminalizing certain activities altogether. Fewer cops and more school counselors, social workers, and mental health emergency response teams; fewer jails and more affordable housing and drug treatment programs; etc.
Vitale's publisher is currently making his book available in eBook form for a steeply discounted price (see the link above). Vitale discusses his work in this NPR interview.
One issue that Vitale does not address is police recruiting and retention. Increasing the reach of police means that more police will have to be recruited. The supply of people who are suited to a career in law enforcement is finite and does not increase simply because politicians have increased the scope of police work. This means that departments may need to lower standards and accept people who might have been weeded out under different circumstances. It also places undue stress on those who really are suited to the demands of what is properly law enforcement, which may induce them to leave the profession.
I fear that calls for limiting police activity will be lost amid more hostile anti-police rhetoric from the left and responses from the right calling for law and order and support for police. Both miss the point. Policing is necessary, but again, it should be restricted to its proper sphere -- i.e., the protection of persons and property. Such restriction is not an attack on police officers or legitimate policing; on the contrary, as Chief Brown’s statement shows, it would greatly benefit the police themselves.
So, instead of “Defund the police”, which despite its apparent clarity has led to misunderstanding and divergent interpretations, I propose a slogan whose meaning is less obvious on its face but which thereby invites dialogue: Decriminalize life.
What might that mean?
End the school-to-prison pipeline. Stop mass incarceration. End the War on Drugs. Legalize voluntary sex work. Fully fund education, public health, mental health, and social services. Develop affordable housing. Pay living wages. Develop humane and rational immigration policies. Again, the main idea is not to abolish law enforcement, but rather to pull back the reach of the criminal justice system and use other other institutions and methods to solve our problems.
Decriminalize life.
Vitale argues that in each of these areas, the expansion of policing and criminalization has not solved the problems and has resulted in disproportionate negative impacts on the most vulnerable members of society, especially the poor and people of color. Vitale advocates curtailing police involvement in all of these areas and shifting resources to other approaches or decriminalizing certain activities altogether. Fewer cops and more school counselors, social workers, and mental health emergency response teams; fewer jails and more affordable housing and drug treatment programs; etc.
Vitale's publisher is currently making his book available in eBook form for a steeply discounted price (see the link above). Vitale discusses his work in this NPR interview.
One issue that Vitale does not address is police recruiting and retention. Increasing the reach of police means that more police will have to be recruited. The supply of people who are suited to a career in law enforcement is finite and does not increase simply because politicians have increased the scope of police work. This means that departments may need to lower standards and accept people who might have been weeded out under different circumstances. It also places undue stress on those who really are suited to the demands of what is properly law enforcement, which may induce them to leave the profession.
I fear that calls for limiting police activity will be lost amid more hostile anti-police rhetoric from the left and responses from the right calling for law and order and support for police. Both miss the point. Policing is necessary, but again, it should be restricted to its proper sphere -- i.e., the protection of persons and property. Such restriction is not an attack on police officers or legitimate policing; on the contrary, as Chief Brown’s statement shows, it would greatly benefit the police themselves.
So, instead of “Defund the police”, which despite its apparent clarity has led to misunderstanding and divergent interpretations, I propose a slogan whose meaning is less obvious on its face but which thereby invites dialogue: Decriminalize life.
What might that mean?
End the school-to-prison pipeline. Stop mass incarceration. End the War on Drugs. Legalize voluntary sex work. Fully fund education, public health, mental health, and social services. Develop affordable housing. Pay living wages. Develop humane and rational immigration policies. Again, the main idea is not to abolish law enforcement, but rather to pull back the reach of the criminal justice system and use other other institutions and methods to solve our problems.
Decriminalize life.
* * *
Addendum (2 July 2020):
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| Source: Wikimedia |
These two works are complementary. The former gives the big picture of mass incarceration and its connection to systemic racism, placing the phenomenon in its historical, political, and economic context. The latter gives the view from ground, showing the effects of systemic racism and neoliberal policies on a single city and on the law enforcement officers who are trying to work for the betterment of their community while caught up in this system.
I knew of racial disparities in incarceration rates in a general way before I saw 13th, but I did not realize just how much the overall incarceration rate had increased during my lifetime. It has skyrocketed (see graph above). For more facts and figures, see The Sentencing Project.
Addendum 2 (13 September 2020)
Relating the above to points I have raised earlier on this blog, I would like to point out that, even if police budgets remain unchanged, as a nation we still have sufficient wealth to increase funding to other agencies in order to enable them to take over some of the tasks that police currently do (although city budgets may not reflect this due to 40 years of oligarchic undermining of public services -- the public sector as a whole has been defunded). The important thing is to re-examine what we want the criminal justice system to do, and refocus policing accordingly. Cutting police budgets is secondary and instrumental, and in some cases may be counterproductive.
Citizens should also consider what their roles might be. Defunding or redirecting the police may require civilians to take on more responsibilities. Perhaps they could participate in youth mentoring, restorative justice, literacy tutoring, violence interruption, or efforts to help the homeless, for example. Greater citizen involvement would be facilitated by shorter working hours and higher wages.
